Archive for the Series Category


Maria Watches Over Us ~ Printemps Anime, Volume 1 (English)

December 22nd, 2008

In the first volume of Maria Watches Over Us ~ Printemps, it’s the beginning of Yumi’s second year at Lillian Jogakuen, and her first meeting with Sachiko after the winter holiday reminds her of her adventures during the New Year’s break. She flashes back to the day when Sei invites out for an overnight at a “friend’s” house and it turns out to be an evening at Sachiko’s manor. We get to grin at Sei and Kashiwagi’s natural enmity. “Nakakiyono” is probably the most re-written of all the episodes in the entire series to date, but I find myself appreciating the changes, understanding that we are being treated to a little service as we gaze upon the Yamayurikai all dressed to the nines for the holiday.

In the second episode, we find that the apparently flaky Rosa Foetida, Torii Eriko, is even flakier than we thought. But after a possible scandal about her dating multiple men rears its ugly head, it turns out that she’s actually way more sensible than we could have ever imagined…even if she’s easily swayed by unusual things. ^_^

The volume ends on one of my personal favorite episodes, in which Yumi, desperate to step up and take hold of the position Rosa Chinensis en bouton in order to help her Onee-sama, finds herself pushed to her limit. (And since I just recently read the story in which we learn *why* Yuuki learned the island dance in the first place, I have a renewed admiration for both Yuuki and Yumi performing it in front of anyone.)

I am a little perpelexed. by the choice of “Printemps” as the season’s subtitle. Was the word “Spring” no good?

The liner notes for this volume were extra excellent, so kudos to whomever wrote those. Video extras come in the form of “Maria-sama ni ha naisho” and a preordered box set come with a phone strap that is supposed to be the White Rose, but is awfully lavender. Not that I am objecting – somehow, lavender seems a perfectly good color for the White Rose family. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 4
Service – 1

Marimite Fan – 100

Overall – 9

A lovely, fun bridge between last season’s trials and the rest of the second season’s tribulations, which will be full of tears…even the good stuff.





Yuri Manga: GIRL FRIENDS, Volume 2

December 21st, 2008

Ladies, let’s talk about when you first fell in love with another woman. Was it a friend? A teacher? A neighbor? Or was it your best friend – that person you always wanted to be with, who made you laugh the hardest and with whom you had some much fun that you never wanted to go home?

Remember the moment when it became something more? When you realized that you wanted to be with her when you were apart, but when you were together, you were so keyed up that you wanted to throw up. When you laid there at night thinking about her, wondering what the hell were you doing, thinking about her all the time?

In Girl Friends, Volume 2, Morinaga Milk absolutely *nails* the exact level of self-inflicted torture of being >this< close to the person you want, and can’t have. Mari is torturing herself over the kiss from last volume. She’s sure that if Ah-ko finds out, she’ll repudiate her. After days of barely being able to be in Ah-ko’s presence, Mari finally admits to the kiss. Ah-ko laughs it off as just something girls do sometimes. Mari’s relieved, but in her heart, she knows that she and Ah-ko aren’t speaking the same language.

A distraction from Mari’s flagellation comes in the form of an old schoolmate who, it turns out in a giant handwave from the plot complication gods, always liked Mari. He asks her out and, pleased to have someone else to focus her attention on, she agrees. A-ko, suspecting something is up, invites Mari over to play dress up, do her makeup and other girly things, in preparation for her big date. Almost immediately, A-ko realizes that Mari’s lukearm feelings for this boy are unfair to both parties. A-ko pushes the issue and Mari admits to liking someone else. A-ko insists that Mari has to tell that person – right away! Mari pushes A-ko back and kisses her, explaining that her feelings can never be returned.

Mari leaves A-ko sitting alone in her room, dealing with this sudden and forceful comprehension of her friend’s emotions. The volume also includes two “extra” chapters, in which we get sexy cosplay and teacher rumor service. ^_^

So, behind the girly shopping, clothes, hair, makeup, nails, etc, this story takes a turn for the realistic. In fact, Mari’s feelings are some of the most true-to-life I have ever seen regarding a first same-sex love in a manga. It might seem to many that the manga is moving slowly, but I say that this is a good thing for two reasons – one, we can see an honest look at the evolution of a girl’s feelings. (When you are falling in love for the first time, with your best, same-sex friend no less, you’re far more likely to spend weeks trying to assimilate these new feelings before ever even thinking of it as love, much less fantasizing about dragging them right off to bed.) Two, it means that there’s more volumes to come.

So few Yuri manga go to three volumes, much less longer; it’s nice to see something that’s taking the slow route to conclusion.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Yuri – 7
Service – 5

Overall – 7

All in all, a surprisingly decent tale behind all the frills and sparkly girly stuff….





Yuri News This Week – December 13, 2008

December 13th, 2008

Strap yourselves in, we have a *lot* of news this week.

Yuri Live Action

I have been forgetting to tell you about this for *ever, so I’m putting it first so I can’t forget this time.lol Yoshida Akemi, mangaka of Lover’s Kiss and many other classic manga, also wrote a story called Sakura no Sono (The Cherry Orchard.) It was made into a movie a long while back, but earlier this year, a remake of the movie was made. There are two trailers, one from the original version and the second from the new version – you can see how the tone changed. Here is the original trailer, here is the new trailer. The basic plot is that a new girl transfers to a private girls school and runs up against the usual stereotypes (bullying ojousoama and henchicks, girl who falls for her, etc…), and then learns it used to be traditional to perform Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard every year until tragedy put an end to it. She decides to revive the tradition – melodrama happens. Aside from the fact that it once again allows me to mention Chekhov on this blog, this story is an eary Yuri classic. Keep an eye out for this movie.

While I’m on live-action, I discovered an incredibly good way to waste chunks of time with Afterellen.com’s short lesbian detective web series BJ Fletcher, Private Eye. It’s hammily written and hammily overacted and the protagonist is not the hero, but it’s a great way to blow a half hour here and there watching a couple of episodes. (Episodes are about 15 minutes long.) :-)

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Yuri Anime

It’s busty women in battle bikinis! The Queens’ Blade trailer is up for your viewing…erm, pleasure.

AND the 4th season trailer for Maria-sama ga Miteru is up on Animate TV, along with a list of the cast (which gives us on the irc channel #[email protected] a good idea of how far this season is going to go through the novels. Join us if you want the low down.) Here are the narrowband and the broadband trailers. Extra points if you can tell what story all that comes from. :-)

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Yuri Manga

Erin wants us to not be sad, but the second volume of Strawberry Shake Sweet will be delayed until January.

In the meantime, the next Yuri Hime S is out in 5 days, so no crying. :-)

And please don’t forget that Yuri Monogatari 6 is in the December Previews and that pre-ordering really *does* make a difference!

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Yuri Light Novels

On December 26th, the next Maria-sama ga Miteru novel, Hello Goodbye hits the streets. In case the title is too subtle, this is likely to be the *last* novel in the series. Fans all over the world are smiling through their tears.

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Yuri Drama CDs

Through the kindness of Okazu superhero Ana, I just recently received a copy of the fifth Ichigo Mashimaro Drama CD. It’s crazy, and just slightly beyond my ability to follow, but as it’s the typical IM setup you have Nobue perving over Anna and Matsuri, and Miu fighting for Nobue’s attention. I’m kind of sympathetic to Chika when she says, “Are you really my sister?” lol

Katherine wants you to know about the Maria-sama ga Miteru Christmas CD, and I want you to know about the Maria-sama ga MiteruSpecial DCD, which comes out on Christmas.

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Yuricon News

Members of Facebook, you can now ‘Become a Fan’ of Yuricon & ALC Publishing! Just visit the Yuricon & ALC page on Facebook and become a fan!

Not on Facebook? You can friend Yuricon & ALC publishing on LiveJournal, MySpace or follow us on Twitter, too!

Also – Yuricon is looking for, well…a new look. The website is four years old now and it’s time for a new design. This is a paid contract job, I’m looking for someone with good design skills, excellent communication skills and a strong sense of deadline and responsibility. You will be responsible for creating the design and assisting with the migration of the site. Students of design are welcome to apply.

If you would like to apply for this position, please email me at yuricon at hotmail dotcom with an introductory email and if possible a link to your portfolio or an example of your work.

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Yuri Doujinshi

Winter Comiket is right around the corner. If you are going to be in Japan for New Year’s Eve, drop by Tokyo Big Sight on 12/30 and stock up on Yuri doujinshi! Use Small Call’s List of Yuri Circles to plan your purchases. (The List is in Japanese, but if you can’t even read the list, then there’s basically no way you’ll be able to make it around Comiket without a guide, lol.) Visit the West Hall, Row Mi (in hiragana), Table 36a for Office Mono, our own Eriko Tadeno’s newest Yuri doujinshi! (yay!!)

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Yuri 3-D Worlds

Lastly. You may remember that I mentioned a Rose Mansion event on Second Life this week. Well, due to other resposibilities I did not make it (I’m still hoping to make the event on 12/19 11PM Japan time…) but someone did! (And, after only a little verbal abuse from me, wrote up a nice little report for us) Let me turn this over to Rei:

This morning I visited the Rose Mansion open house on Second Life. I have to say I was impressed. The entire SIM is really quite amazing – it’s apparent that someone spent a lot of time painstakingly recreating the setting of Maria-sama ga Miteru. As you approach the gate you’re given a free change of clothes for your avatar into a Lillian uniform (or Hanadera uniform for the guys) and from there on it only gets cuter. If you explore far enough you’ll discover there are Photography Club and Newspaper Club branch offices in the Rose Mansion. Here you’ll find free armbands for your avatar. I chose to adorn myself with the Photography Club arm band. There’s also a church on the premises that features pictures from past MARIASAMA group events, and of course, the ever-serene Maria-sama’s garden, replete with statue.

The visitors are also very charming: chatting away in Japanese about everything under the sun, but mostly fashion. I met two locals who were very encouraging and helpful. MAO Amaterasu seems to be a Linden Millionaire who has various gorgeous avatar costumes to change into, hair that never stops flowing and walks like she’s on imported air (thank you Blondie). Her cute rosary-toting soeur, Sakurako Ceriano, gave me some toast to carry around in my avatar’s mouth and told me all about Hatsumoude at her local shrine. I think there were games and stuff but I arrived too late to for the party-favors. Anyway, it was a blast.

For anyone interested, the SIM is located in Sonima, but just so you know, you can’t fly within school grounds: walking slowly so as not to disturb the pleats in your skirts is the preferred mode of travel here. Have fun exploring and be sure to bring your parasol. ~Rei (Known on Second Life as Kohime Matsuri)

Thanks Rei, that was fabulous and now I really want to make it to the next event…!

Oh, btw, Rei also told me that when you arrive at the Rose Mansion, the light shines through the stained glass above the stairs and rains three colors of light down upon you. LF heaven.

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That’s all there is for this week, except for the stuff I forgot. Oh well, there’s always next week!





Aria Anime, Volume 2 (English)

December 12th, 2008

You know *that* moment? That one second when you’re watching an anime and something makes you grin lopsidedly and nod to no one in particular, saying sagely to yourself, “I knew it.”

Volume 2 of Aria has one of those moments. ^_^

The days pass gently in Neo-Venezia, full of stories of challenges and friendship and of course, backed by beautiful scenery.

In Volume 2, we’ve been introduced to all of the journeyman Undine, and we’re getting to know their mentors a little better. Five seconds of Akira’s no-nonsense, in-your-face competence and your gaydar is through the roof. You know it. She’s “one of us.” ^_^

And then there’s *that* moment. Akira, having been described as being popular with female customers, blatantly turns her overwhelming otokoyaku charm on a client, subtlely making her husband appear a clod, and yet, being nothing but attentive. Akira, according to the book that accompanies this box set, “is one of the few Undines that can always provide a superior level of service to her clients.” Especially, we think, wearing a lopsided grin, her female clients. The story is about tough love and living in the now. And about how gosh-darn sexy Akira is when she’s angry.

Aside from that, this volume provides an unusual opportunity to wallow in the company of the Three Faries of the Water and even hear Athena sing – all very, very good reasons to watch this anime. But the number one reason is to watch any of Aria is the beautiful scenery, both architectural and human. This, more than just about any other series I have ever seen, is all about bishoujo appeal.

And, at least for this one female client, the best of the Three Fairies is the Crimson Rose. I would totally agree that she provides superior service. lol

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 7
Yuri – 3
Service – 1

Overall – 8

Once again, thanks to Okazu superhero Dan P for sponsoring today’s review! (And, btw, if you are considering sponsoring a review, by buying something off the Yuri Wishlist, consider getting a “used” copy – especially of the older, and more obscure items. And thanks!)





This Week in Yuri – December 6, 2008

December 6th, 2008

Yuri Live-Action

Let’s start off with something a little different today. Takarazuka has announced that they will be doing a Phoenix Wright show in February through March. The Takarazuka website has a peek at the poster for the show. This performance is Cosmos troupe, for those of you who follow TK. :-)

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Yuri Anime

Right Stuf has announced that they have updated the Maria Watches Over Us website, with new trailers and spiffy downloads for fans of the series. There’s also official character profiles now for Touko and Noriko.

Meanwhile, on the Japanese-language Marimite website, Gokigenyou.com, you can see the character design for Shouko – a character I cannot *wait* for you all to meet.

Also, because this ought to be a challenge….The Rose Mansion is coming to life again in Second Life, on 12/12 and 12/19 at 11PM Japan time. News about the events can be found here – in Japanese, of course. I’m going to try and make one of the events. I don’t know if it will work, and I’ll probably be hopelessly lost, but…

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Yuri Drama CD

I’d completely forgotten to mention that there are BLUE DROP drama CDs – Volume 1 and Volume 2 – that were put out this year. They both seem to deal with the story from the first volume of manga (not the anime) and are further delineated into “Lover’s Side” and “Traitor’s Side.” Intruiging, huh? I’ll add these to the “to-get” lists and report back when I’ve had a chance to give them a listen. :-)

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Yuri Manga

The newest 100% Yuri anthology from ALC Publishing, Yuri Monogatari 6 is up for a limited time/limited audience pre-preorder special. Members of the Yuricon Mailing List and J.D. Glass’s newsletter were treated to a special discount and extra gift order. Expect a more open pre-order period after the holidays. And I’ll do a sneek peak then, too. It’s going to be a fabulous anthology!

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No “Snatches” today. It’s been a long week. I’ll try and play catch up next week with a list of obscure stuff you don’t care about. lol